Butterfly Man
08-17-08, 03:51 PM
From my buddy Dana Smith...
I've been commemorating the journey of my performing career this weekend. Man on Wire the documentary of Phillip Petit's wire walking between the World Trade Towers opened this weekend in SF. That he would perform this
great ropewalking feat just two days before Nick, Steve and I would go into rehearsals was part of what made up the buzz we all felt back then. Our minds were scattered among many things in those historic days. Viet Nam remained active. Nixon resigns the same day we begin. Our plate was full to say the least. Fellini releases Amacord, a miracle of gentleness and humor.
All of these various influences came rushing into my mind last night while watching Man on Wire. Less than a year passes and Nick, Steve and I see Petit perform in St. Petersburg, Florida with the Ringling Show. It was
as if at that time Nixon ought to have been caged and exhibited as the worlds greatest political monster to ever be exhibited by any circus anywhere in the world! Mishu was part of the Ringling Show in those days.
Petit had truly captivated the worlds imagination with his great performance
between the towers. It was that winter in 1975 when Nick met Mitch. It was that winter when we got Othello. It was that spring when the first bear came aboard. It is hard to remember the flavor and spirit of that era, but the photographs do reveal in the eyes and shapes of the faces of the casts the sheer energy of the thing.
Of course Petit is one of a kind and I must tip my hat to the great guts he put on display. Of course falling from 40 feet is sufficient to kill a person and so another 1300 feet does little to change the fatal nature of an error from either height.
But in the spirit of the thing it must be remembered that there was a raw energy to the circus. We often bent laws and trampled tradition appearing in places never conceived of before. Custodians were frequently the most offended. Security guards hated our disdain for vehicular rules. Merchants often were offended by the placement of our little show. We carried a kind of proud desire to upset all those sacred cows and rigid minds. In the years since my time with the circus I've perfected the fine
art of crashing places and setting up and performing come what may. Street
is kind of that, but sometimes a campus, a festival, an odd campground in the middle of nowhere can be the site of this kind of impromptu show making....it is most exciting when the police are called! That's my
favorite. When the law must be involved!
I am reminded too that there was a great sensuality to our work in that era. People stopped everything and came to our show. They invited us to
meals. We drank wine and some of us were swept away to dark rooms where
smitten lovers blown away by the audacity of our art baptized us with their
fine wet moist bodies. It was all this frantic emotional churning of wanting
to break free from the constraints of the time. That kind of selfish, self centered, pleasure centric, carnal peaking of experience was in a way part of our ecstasy, our trying to reframe the mundane. It would be some years
later before all of us, or at least one of us, perhaps just myself would have to reckon with changing sexuality and artistic impulse into distinctly separate channels of creativity and meaning.
These are just fragments now. Thirty five years equals some 12,768 days (give or take a leap year)... Every year I do some raw numbers
crunching and my performances approximate the numbers of days I have been at
this. Lacey (his dog) is closing in on 3500 shows! She might have another 600 left
perhaps more. That act will pass too soon. I'll see her failing health in myown mortality. "The road gets rougher, its lonelier and its tougher..." (The Man that Got Away. Song lyric)...
Yesterday I put 250 miles on my rig. Appeared near Santa Cruz in Seascape south of there in a street in front of a beach house for a company picnic. The audience was sublime! They were beyond kind and fun. They
laughed, applauded and cheered. Next, I drove back to the other side of the Bay Area (110 miles) to Antioch and appeared at the annual Antioch Riverwalk Dog Bark in the Park! There I did another set in the midst of a community
dog event. Another very good show and kind audience.
While packing up an old white haired geezer approached.
He said, "Been watching you down in Phoenix the last years during winter. We used to see you in the Wharf when we still had kids at home. It's good to see you. We're always happy when we stumble on you."
It is hard to explain to folk. How we were born into this with such wild dreams and untamed souls. How all those days from so long ago continue to keep that flame burning inside of us. We represent an unbroken living
connection. The laughs, the applause, the admiration and hopes of long ago audiences stick a piece of their hopes right into our souls and this fragment carries on and on. This is what makes sticking around so worthwhile. I know that someone out there gets that I am in part what is still alive about the Royal Lichtenstein Quarter Ring Sidewalk Circus. Maybe I ain't the whole show, but there is a part of me that keeps something about that alive to this day... I'd suggest that all of us still do that in ways that often surprise and amaze...
I'm going to sleep early tonight and hope to seize and make real more dreams! Yesterday, August 9, 2008, was far more a wonder than I could have ever imagined. As we grow in our life it isn't necessary to let this dull world tame us, it is only necessary to allow its wisdom to advise us, to guide us toward that shot at one more masterpiece. I am grateful for Petit's great work on August 7, 1974. I like to believe that there is a chance that the next great work is still ahead........... and I know that it is!
Dana
RLC 74-75
I've been commemorating the journey of my performing career this weekend. Man on Wire the documentary of Phillip Petit's wire walking between the World Trade Towers opened this weekend in SF. That he would perform this
great ropewalking feat just two days before Nick, Steve and I would go into rehearsals was part of what made up the buzz we all felt back then. Our minds were scattered among many things in those historic days. Viet Nam remained active. Nixon resigns the same day we begin. Our plate was full to say the least. Fellini releases Amacord, a miracle of gentleness and humor.
All of these various influences came rushing into my mind last night while watching Man on Wire. Less than a year passes and Nick, Steve and I see Petit perform in St. Petersburg, Florida with the Ringling Show. It was
as if at that time Nixon ought to have been caged and exhibited as the worlds greatest political monster to ever be exhibited by any circus anywhere in the world! Mishu was part of the Ringling Show in those days.
Petit had truly captivated the worlds imagination with his great performance
between the towers. It was that winter in 1975 when Nick met Mitch. It was that winter when we got Othello. It was that spring when the first bear came aboard. It is hard to remember the flavor and spirit of that era, but the photographs do reveal in the eyes and shapes of the faces of the casts the sheer energy of the thing.
Of course Petit is one of a kind and I must tip my hat to the great guts he put on display. Of course falling from 40 feet is sufficient to kill a person and so another 1300 feet does little to change the fatal nature of an error from either height.
But in the spirit of the thing it must be remembered that there was a raw energy to the circus. We often bent laws and trampled tradition appearing in places never conceived of before. Custodians were frequently the most offended. Security guards hated our disdain for vehicular rules. Merchants often were offended by the placement of our little show. We carried a kind of proud desire to upset all those sacred cows and rigid minds. In the years since my time with the circus I've perfected the fine
art of crashing places and setting up and performing come what may. Street
is kind of that, but sometimes a campus, a festival, an odd campground in the middle of nowhere can be the site of this kind of impromptu show making....it is most exciting when the police are called! That's my
favorite. When the law must be involved!
I am reminded too that there was a great sensuality to our work in that era. People stopped everything and came to our show. They invited us to
meals. We drank wine and some of us were swept away to dark rooms where
smitten lovers blown away by the audacity of our art baptized us with their
fine wet moist bodies. It was all this frantic emotional churning of wanting
to break free from the constraints of the time. That kind of selfish, self centered, pleasure centric, carnal peaking of experience was in a way part of our ecstasy, our trying to reframe the mundane. It would be some years
later before all of us, or at least one of us, perhaps just myself would have to reckon with changing sexuality and artistic impulse into distinctly separate channels of creativity and meaning.
These are just fragments now. Thirty five years equals some 12,768 days (give or take a leap year)... Every year I do some raw numbers
crunching and my performances approximate the numbers of days I have been at
this. Lacey (his dog) is closing in on 3500 shows! She might have another 600 left
perhaps more. That act will pass too soon. I'll see her failing health in myown mortality. "The road gets rougher, its lonelier and its tougher..." (The Man that Got Away. Song lyric)...
Yesterday I put 250 miles on my rig. Appeared near Santa Cruz in Seascape south of there in a street in front of a beach house for a company picnic. The audience was sublime! They were beyond kind and fun. They
laughed, applauded and cheered. Next, I drove back to the other side of the Bay Area (110 miles) to Antioch and appeared at the annual Antioch Riverwalk Dog Bark in the Park! There I did another set in the midst of a community
dog event. Another very good show and kind audience.
While packing up an old white haired geezer approached.
He said, "Been watching you down in Phoenix the last years during winter. We used to see you in the Wharf when we still had kids at home. It's good to see you. We're always happy when we stumble on you."
It is hard to explain to folk. How we were born into this with such wild dreams and untamed souls. How all those days from so long ago continue to keep that flame burning inside of us. We represent an unbroken living
connection. The laughs, the applause, the admiration and hopes of long ago audiences stick a piece of their hopes right into our souls and this fragment carries on and on. This is what makes sticking around so worthwhile. I know that someone out there gets that I am in part what is still alive about the Royal Lichtenstein Quarter Ring Sidewalk Circus. Maybe I ain't the whole show, but there is a part of me that keeps something about that alive to this day... I'd suggest that all of us still do that in ways that often surprise and amaze...
I'm going to sleep early tonight and hope to seize and make real more dreams! Yesterday, August 9, 2008, was far more a wonder than I could have ever imagined. As we grow in our life it isn't necessary to let this dull world tame us, it is only necessary to allow its wisdom to advise us, to guide us toward that shot at one more masterpiece. I am grateful for Petit's great work on August 7, 1974. I like to believe that there is a chance that the next great work is still ahead........... and I know that it is!
Dana
RLC 74-75